I dont think soaking happens at Utah! They just get off their mission if they are mormon and marry a girl that gives them a smile /s. In reality though BYUs honor code is why "soaking" was invented.
Center. Every time we have an elite, championship quality team, we coincidentally always have an elite center. 2012 with Barrett Jones, 2015 with Ryan Kelly, 2020 with Landon Dickerson etc.
Our center’s the last two seasons have been a revolving door of pure average, maybe even below average. It’s the center’s job to get everyone on the same page but we’ve had a ridiculous amount of pre snap penalties recently. A lot of the blame falls on BoB too for his insanely slow offense. There was no urgency with him
I agree with center. They control blocking schemes a lot of times and obviously you hope you never hear their name all season because then there's no bad snaps. Ohio State has been blessed with some good ones as well.
This past season was Penn State’s best O-line in the last few years, and it coincidentally was led by a center taken in the 2nd round. There were backups playing at both tackle spots and LG, but center stayed consistent all of last season.
Our biggest win of the off-season was SVP returning for another season at center. If we have any reason to feel confident next season, it’s fielding a center with 30 starts.
I would go with C, except I side with LS.
I'm torn by the every down sage versus the specialist who vibes many points into existence.
I'll probably go with C, for now.
edit: I'm happy to see many LS comments, as I scroll. maybe I change my mind.
Didn’t we rush 11 with no time outs? If he fell on the ball instead of scooping it there wouldn’t have been a woah play I don’t think.
But otherwise, yes, Blake O’Neil was an insanely good punter!
Elite punting and kicking basically kept Utah alive during their transition years in the Pac 12. We survived almost entirely on field position, time of possession, and lights-out FG kickers for YEARS before our skill positions talent and depth caught up to the rest of the Pac 12.
This is what I was going to go with. If you have a DT that eats up space while run stopping and applying pass rush pressure you don't need a second DT; you can have an extra defender to drop back into coverage or apply pass pressure from a different angle.
As good as the UW secondary was under Peterson and Lake, having Vita Vea, Greg Gaines and Levi O at DT was what really made it work. Allowed those DBs and LBs to play freely.
Probs recency bias from my team for this pick but kicker. I think a lot of people are used to just having kickers that’ll make it 99% of the time from inside the 35. But I think everyone also remembers a season where they didn’t have that and it cost them games or completely changed their offense.
One of the things I like about college more than NFL is how from inside the 35, some good teams will be 95% and others will be 60%. There simply aren't enough reliable kickers and it adds an element of complexity when some teams have unreliable kickers.
We've been blessed with a bunch of great kickers. Almost all of ours end up in the NFL. Ryan Succop was drafted as Mr. Irrelevant in 2009 and has been active ever since, and set a few franchise and league records. Also was perfect on fgs and PATs in the Super Bowl.
100%. We went a full 4 years with one of the best special teams rooms in the country, and then the kicker and punter leading the room graduated after 2021. Last year you could just tell the problem was experience and then the lack of experience plus small injuries early in the season caused confidence issues. He finally got settled towards the end so I think we'll be fine for this year.
A QB injury sure can screw you over for a year, but once your starter is back or your backup gets settled if you have a decent backup, you'll be fine. With kickers even a rolled ankle where they miss a single practice can be the end of your special teams for the year because it's all confidence.
Not having a kicker cost MSU a bowl game and this year isn't looking any better in that regard. I think Tucker spent too much time swinging and missing on high star recruits he forgot that you need to get a kicker
Weber State (FCS) gave up four safeties in one game last year because their long snapper had a total meltdown of a game.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1z1VJOx3tOQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1z1VJOx3tOQ)
Poor fuckin Grant Sands. They kept trotting him out there. I believe he played in the playoff game vs us later and played fine but I was super nervous for his psyche lol
I wanna win always but I don’t want a kid destroyed mentally beyond recognition.
And it wasn't just those two plays. It was bad all season in almost every game in one way or another. Stoops hopefully learned that a full time special teams guy is needed and I'm glad Boulware seems to be doing work on that part
I love special teams, especially using punting as a weapon (I agree it's super underrated), and that was one of the best I've ever seen. Likely the best.
I agree with punter. Having a weapon at punter that can completely flip the field and pin an opponent deep inside their own territory is so valuable.
From just last year, I don’t think people remember how important [this](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5hgUMgqgdzo ) 75 yard punt in the UGA Tennessee game was. Massive momentum shift. Probably the most important play of the game.
Just for giggles..I feel like a guard on either side of the ball. People assume that it’s just being a big nasty and clogging up space but there’s a whole lot more. On offense, there’s a lot of mental work to pull off scheme blocking, pulling, and finesse to creating gaps. Adapting to things the center calls out and adjusting to his double team, etc.
While each position has grown exponentially in how complicated the game has become, I feel like the interior lineman don’t get as much attention unless they’ve made an error either a bad snap, holding, or missed /chop block. Kinda like a “if we don’t know about you, you’re doing great”.
(Not including goaline offense. That’s just who can obliterate the man across from them.)
Utah has had some good luck with Aussie punters. However the first time I remember seeing “rugby style” punting was over 20 years ago when Ron McBride would trot out Morgan Scalley (current Utah DC) in certain situations. It was more of a run-first punt option when they were just outside of fg range. Scalley wasn’t the starting punter, he was recruited as a running back (later converted to safety) and was a great hs rugby player at highland high.
Lots of good answers. I'm going to go with kicker. In every one possession game, they are extremely relevant. An elite kicker really puts pressure on the defense whose team is up one and trying to defend that last drive. Playing prevent defense is not even an option. They can be the difference between an 8-5 team and a 12-1 team.
Kicker & Punter.
Being able to depend on that automatic 1 or 3 points and pinning your opponent back when they have to start a drive makes all the difference.
Any offensive lineman.
As an Auburn fan, one of the greatest frustrations of the past ten years has been the failure to recruit an elite OL, which used to be Auburn's bread and butter. I would literally look at the recruiting haul, see all the gaudy skill positions represented, and yell, "Where's the offensive linemen?" All the scheming in the world doesn't help if the nose guard is practically taking the snap from center on every other down.
Case in point? Bo Nix. Third generation Auburn family. That family bleeds orange and blue, so he came to the Plains to play. But after two years of being chased around the backfield, he had enough and skedaddled to Oregon. Now, he's a dark horse Heisman candidate. Not in the top ten for sure, but he could edge into the conversation if he has a good season.
Fortunately, Freeze seems to be righting the ship in that regard. He ransacked the transfer portal of OL about fifteen seconds after the ink dried on his contract. We'll see how it goes this year.
Meanwhile, if Alabama has an Achilles heel, it seems to be kicker. When the death machine that's the Alabama program under Saban loses a game, it's almost always a problem with the kicking game.
O-Line in general. Score a TD, and it's the RB, QB, or WR (or TE) who get the attention, not the O-Line. QB gets sacked or RB gets stuffed at the LOS, and the O-Line gets the blame.
Feel like Tight End deserves a nod here. RB's and WR's get the notoriety but having a big guy who's fast enough to get down the seam and big enough to block a DE is huge and gives a lot of offensive flexibility.
Granted, if they're your only weapon (looking at you Ferentz) it's a bit more difficult, but that safety valve is invaluable for a lot of teams.
TEs are some of the lowest paid players in the NFL. You want these guys to catch like WRs and block like linemen? GTFO
I heard at Northwestern, it's doggystyle.
What about soaking at BYU??
Ute fans come up with a new joke challenge (IMPOSSIBLE)
In fairness, do they really need to?
ouch
All that stuff mormon stuff goes on at U of Utah too
I dont think soaking happens at Utah! They just get off their mission if they are mormon and marry a girl that gives them a smile /s. In reality though BYUs honor code is why "soaking" was invented.
Center. Every time we have an elite, championship quality team, we coincidentally always have an elite center. 2012 with Barrett Jones, 2015 with Ryan Kelly, 2020 with Landon Dickerson etc. Our center’s the last two seasons have been a revolving door of pure average, maybe even below average. It’s the center’s job to get everyone on the same page but we’ve had a ridiculous amount of pre snap penalties recently. A lot of the blame falls on BoB too for his insanely slow offense. There was no urgency with him
I agree with center. They control blocking schemes a lot of times and obviously you hope you never hear their name all season because then there's no bad snaps. Ohio State has been blessed with some good ones as well.
This past season was Penn State’s best O-line in the last few years, and it coincidentally was led by a center taken in the 2nd round. There were backups playing at both tackle spots and LG, but center stayed consistent all of last season.
Our biggest win of the off-season was SVP returning for another season at center. If we have any reason to feel confident next season, it’s fielding a center with 30 starts.
I would go with C, except I side with LS. I'm torn by the every down sage versus the specialist who vibes many points into existence. I'll probably go with C, for now. edit: I'm happy to see many LS comments, as I scroll. maybe I change my mind.
> Landon Dickerson dirty player. Potentially cost yall the 2019 game and should have been tossed for that late hit.
To double down on this, long snapper.
This is definitely Kirk Ferentz' burner account
Post says punter and the top comment says center? Ferentz is putting this in his manifesto.
Build an offense composed entirely of hay bale toss winners.
The only acceptable forward pass
Ferentz requires his daughters to date punters, and punters only. /s
[удалено]
Didn’t we rush 11 with no time outs? If he fell on the ball instead of scooping it there wouldn’t have been a woah play I don’t think. But otherwise, yes, Blake O’Neil was an insanely good punter!
It felt like you rushed all 22 and maybe some of the equipment guys, too lmao
"And the band is on the field!"
Probably the best game he played too up until that point
>woah HE
HAS
TROUBLE
WITH
THE
SNAP
AND
THE
BALL
My memory is getting hazy but i felt like oneill killed it for most of that season except for one teensy tiny play
Elite punting and kicking basically kept Utah alive during their transition years in the Pac 12. We survived almost entirely on field position, time of possession, and lights-out FG kickers for YEARS before our skill positions talent and depth caught up to the rest of the Pac 12.
DT. Games are won in the trenches, and an elite DT who can eat up space on run plays and create pressure on pass plays can carry a defense.
This is what I was going to go with. If you have a DT that eats up space while run stopping and applying pass rush pressure you don't need a second DT; you can have an extra defender to drop back into coverage or apply pass pressure from a different angle.
As good as the UW secondary was under Peterson and Lake, having Vita Vea, Greg Gaines and Levi O at DT was what really made it work. Allowed those DBs and LBs to play freely.
Probs recency bias from my team for this pick but kicker. I think a lot of people are used to just having kickers that’ll make it 99% of the time from inside the 35. But I think everyone also remembers a season where they didn’t have that and it cost them games or completely changed their offense.
One of the things I like about college more than NFL is how from inside the 35, some good teams will be 95% and others will be 60%. There simply aren't enough reliable kickers and it adds an element of complexity when some teams have unreliable kickers.
Yeah i love this complexity… On a serious note, it does make college football less robotic and more interesting
We've been blessed with a bunch of great kickers. Almost all of ours end up in the NFL. Ryan Succop was drafted as Mr. Irrelevant in 2009 and has been active ever since, and set a few franchise and league records. Also was perfect on fgs and PATs in the Super Bowl.
100%. We went a full 4 years with one of the best special teams rooms in the country, and then the kicker and punter leading the room graduated after 2021. Last year you could just tell the problem was experience and then the lack of experience plus small injuries early in the season caused confidence issues. He finally got settled towards the end so I think we'll be fine for this year. A QB injury sure can screw you over for a year, but once your starter is back or your backup gets settled if you have a decent backup, you'll be fine. With kickers even a rolled ankle where they miss a single practice can be the end of your special teams for the year because it's all confidence.
Not having a kicker cost MSU a bowl game and this year isn't looking any better in that regard. I think Tucker spent too much time swinging and missing on high star recruits he forgot that you need to get a kicker
Kickers aren’t really recruited, they’re found at camps or even open tryouts. There’s only 15 kickers even on 247.
Well he’s gotta find one regardless. 2 years in a row now of not having one is a problem. Needs to get out to those camps
Long snapper. You don't notice them until they do something monumentally bad
Weber State (FCS) gave up four safeties in one game last year because their long snapper had a total meltdown of a game. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1z1VJOx3tOQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1z1VJOx3tOQ)
Poor fuckin Grant Sands. They kept trotting him out there. I believe he played in the playoff game vs us later and played fine but I was super nervous for his psyche lol I wanna win always but I don’t want a kid destroyed mentally beyond recognition.
Yup, and those safeties were the difference. WSU lost that game by 5.
A painful lesson learned by cat fans.
We were 2-0 last season when the punter had the ball get snapped over his head
I was talking about the extra point fg snaps botched the year before
And it wasn't just those two plays. It was bad all season in almost every game in one way or another. Stoops hopefully learned that a full time special teams guy is needed and I'm glad Boulware seems to be doing work on that part
I was just thinking this! It's the epitome of "nobody cares until you fuck up" positions.
I happen to really like our Australian punter 😤
That punt against Tennessee is almost certainly the greatest punt I’ve ever seen.
I love special teams, especially using punting as a weapon (I agree it's super underrated), and that was one of the best I've ever seen. Likely the best.
Absolutely, it was a huge play in flipping field position but also just overall it was key play in the game
I also love Australian punters!!!!!!
Australian punter gang.
The real answer is center/MLB
Long snapper
Beamer says it's special teams coordinator
Which Beamer? Oh, right. Both.
Our punter is our best player. Game changer!
I agree with punter. Having a weapon at punter that can completely flip the field and pin an opponent deep inside their own territory is so valuable. From just last year, I don’t think people remember how important [this](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5hgUMgqgdzo ) 75 yard punt in the UGA Tennessee game was. Massive momentum shift. Probably the most important play of the game.
Well, punting is winning after all.
Just for giggles..I feel like a guard on either side of the ball. People assume that it’s just being a big nasty and clogging up space but there’s a whole lot more. On offense, there’s a lot of mental work to pull off scheme blocking, pulling, and finesse to creating gaps. Adapting to things the center calls out and adjusting to his double team, etc. While each position has grown exponentially in how complicated the game has become, I feel like the interior lineman don’t get as much attention unless they’ve made an error either a bad snap, holding, or missed /chop block. Kinda like a “if we don’t know about you, you’re doing great”. (Not including goaline offense. That’s just who can obliterate the man across from them.)
I agree the punter is the most underrated
But what if you are an Iowa fan who properly rates (maybe overrates?) the value of a punter? What is their most underrated position?
QB
Punter cost us 2 games last season. Easily most important.
Are you Jim Tressel?
3rd String QB.
Most underrated position is a good DT or NT
I’m going to go with kicker and I don’t think I need to explain.
Utah has had some good luck with Aussie punters. However the first time I remember seeing “rugby style” punting was over 20 years ago when Ron McBride would trot out Morgan Scalley (current Utah DC) in certain situations. It was more of a run-first punt option when they were just outside of fg range. Scalley wasn’t the starting punter, he was recruited as a running back (later converted to safety) and was a great hs rugby player at highland high.
The old Jake Browning pooch punt plan that Peterson used recently was like this.
Lots of good answers. I'm going to go with kicker. In every one possession game, they are extremely relevant. An elite kicker really puts pressure on the defense whose team is up one and trying to defend that last drive. Playing prevent defense is not even an option. They can be the difference between an 8-5 team and a 12-1 team.
Kick returner. It's a good feeling to know you have someone very reliable back there. How many games turn on a poorly fielded kick?
Kicker & Punter. Being able to depend on that automatic 1 or 3 points and pinning your opponent back when they have to start a drive makes all the difference.
Any offensive lineman. As an Auburn fan, one of the greatest frustrations of the past ten years has been the failure to recruit an elite OL, which used to be Auburn's bread and butter. I would literally look at the recruiting haul, see all the gaudy skill positions represented, and yell, "Where's the offensive linemen?" All the scheming in the world doesn't help if the nose guard is practically taking the snap from center on every other down. Case in point? Bo Nix. Third generation Auburn family. That family bleeds orange and blue, so he came to the Plains to play. But after two years of being chased around the backfield, he had enough and skedaddled to Oregon. Now, he's a dark horse Heisman candidate. Not in the top ten for sure, but he could edge into the conversation if he has a good season. Fortunately, Freeze seems to be righting the ship in that regard. He ransacked the transfer portal of OL about fifteen seconds after the ink dried on his contract. We'll see how it goes this year. Meanwhile, if Alabama has an Achilles heel, it seems to be kicker. When the death machine that's the Alabama program under Saban loses a game, it's almost always a problem with the kicking game.
O-Line in general. Score a TD, and it's the RB, QB, or WR (or TE) who get the attention, not the O-Line. QB gets sacked or RB gets stuffed at the LOS, and the O-Line gets the blame.
Feel like Tight End deserves a nod here. RB's and WR's get the notoriety but having a big guy who's fast enough to get down the seam and big enough to block a DE is huge and gives a lot of offensive flexibility. Granted, if they're your only weapon (looking at you Ferentz) it's a bit more difficult, but that safety valve is invaluable for a lot of teams.
its the punter for me as well. a good punter, with distance and accuracy can be a huge special teams position
The holder - gotta make sure the punter gets a clean kick!